The Great Santini (16 page)

"I can vouch for those white folk in Alabama, Arrabelle. What do you take in your coffee?"

"A lots of cream and sugar up the spoon just a little bit."

"Do you have any children?"

"I got me a fine boy that you can see up on the store street selling flower to the folk that come downtown."

"With the mule? Selling flowers from the back of the wagon?" Lillian asked.

"That the one. That's my son. Toomer, the flower boy. For eighteen years he be right there in that alley makin' a nice livin' from his flower, his herb, and his honey. My whole family ain't never been afraid of no hard work."

"I can tell that by looking at your hands, Arrabelle," Lillian said, glancing down at lined, leathery hands as distinctive as gloves. "And this house is going to be hard work. In fact it's going to be hard work for both of us. This is an old house in need of repair and we aren't going to be repairing anything. We're just going to apply makeup in the right places when the old girl starts to show her spots and wrinkles."

"It smell faintish in these old houses," Arrabelle said, working her nose away from the coffee.

"There's a lot of dampness trapped because the sun can't work its way beneath these balconies. Do you cook?"

"Lord, honey, if it moves Arrabelle can cook it. And if it don't move, she can always throw it in the pot with some greens and hamhock."

"Then you're my kind of cook. We might have to send Bull out for T.V. dinners a couple of nights a week but he may even get to like southern cooking before he's toothless, hairless, and being measured for a pine box."

"When the shrimpin' mens bring me the shrimps and the fishes, I'll fix 'em up for you and your fambly. Nothin' so good in the world as mull shrimp with lots of onion and brown gravy.

"When can you start work?"

She lifted her left foot above the chair for Lillian's observation. "These shoes I got on my foots are the workin' shoes. I told my boy Toomer to drive his wagon by at about five."

"Do you live far from here?"

"Not far. I live down in Paradise behind the jail. You know where almost all the colored folk live who not out on the island. My boy just like to come pick his mama up if he can. You can meet my nice boy when he come."

He was a short man like his mother, extraordinarily dark with a fine high-cheekbone structure to his face that gave his whole demeanor a darkly brooding nobility. On his left foot he wore a corrective shoe and he walked with a slight limp. He leaned far over on his knees and held the reins lightly as he pulled up beside Ben. His eyes were amused and curious.

"That's just about the ugliest c-c-cat I ever did see, white boy," he said to Ben, pointing a stubby finger at Okra.

"Well, that's just about the ugliest cow pulling that wagon that I ever saw, too," Ben replied.

"This ain't no cow. This h-h-here is Man-O-War, winner of the Ken-tucky Derby."

"It sure looks like a cow to me," Ben said noticing the man had not smiled yet. "But this ain't no cat. This here noble beast is Rin-Tin-Tin, star of stage, screen, and T.V. set."

"I ain't never seen no white boy b-b-bounce no basketball through no sittin' chairs. And I seen me lots of crazy white boys."

"You've never seen a white boy that can dribble half as good as I can. Your name's Toomer, isn't it?" Ben asked.

"That's what my mama called me."

"My name's Ben Meecham, Toomer. I live here at the house. I met your mama this morning and she seems like a real nice lady."

"She sure raise a fine boy," Toomer said, breaking out finally in a huge smile.

Reaching in the back of the wagon, Toomer chose a bunch of wilted flowers wrapped in Spanish moss and said," Give these flowers to your mama when she gets home."

"Mom usually likes flowers a lot better when they're alive."

"Sassy ol' white boy, ain't you? Just put these things in a little water and they'll come back g-g-g-good as when I pick 'em fresh this morning."

Arrabelle and Lillian walked out of the front door. Lillian was dressed in a white summer dress and sandals. Her fine, tanned skin looked coolly fresh even during the hottest days of summer. The bridge to the islands was opening for a two masted schooner that was maneuvering down the inland waterway. "I wonder who s-s-stole my boat," Toomer said, winking at Ben.

"Miss Meecham," Arrabelle said," this here is my boy, Toomer Smalls."

"The pleasure is all mine, Toomer. I've seen you downtown many times and I always planned to stop and chat but something always interfered."

"How you, ma'am," Toomer replied, averting his eyes from Lillian.

"Toomer wanted me to give you these flowers, Mom," Ben said, handing her the wilted bouquet.

"Why, Toomer, you sweet thing. I can't take these. Let me pay you for them."

"No, ma'am. I was gonna toss them over the bridge when I w-w-went home, anyhow. You just put 'em in s-s-some water.

"Well, they are lovely as they can be, Toomer. Bless your heart," Lillian said.

"They almost look real, don't they, Mom?" Ben said.

"Hush, Ben, don't be silly. Anyway you need to be getting my good chairs back in the house. What if it starts to rain?"

"Toomer grows most all his flowers right at his own place on the other side of the bridge," Arrabelle said. "It so pretty where those flowers be. But I so shame for anyone to see where Toomer lay his head. That boy won't build himself no decent house to live in. I not even tell you what he live in, it make me feel so bad."

"Toomer, tell me some way I can repay you for the flowers. Let me fix you up an apple pie over the weekend."

"Here, Mrs. M-m-meecham, you go on and take another bunch," he said, reaching back and lifting another moss-wrapped bunch from the back of the wagon.

"Why do you wrap them in Spanish moss?" Ben asked Toomer.

"Hold in the moisture better than any ol' thing," Toomer replied.

"What you doin' this weekend, son?" Arrabelle asked.

"I'm goin' up the river to catch some shrimps and crabs. Might even do a little fishin'."

"You bring me back some nice flounder I can fix up for this fambly. And a couple pound of shrimps," she said, then turning to Ben she said," You ever been fishin' much, Ben?"

"Not in salt water."

"Toomer," Lillian said, suddenly. "Could Ben go along with you and just watch? It might save my dining room chairs and he doesn't know anybody in town yet. It would get him out of the house. His daddy's a Yankee and never encouraged him to participate in any outdoor sports like hunting and fishing. The men in my family when I was growing up would rather spend their time in the woods than anywhere else. Ben doesn't know what it means to be a southern man."

"You want to go, dribblin' man?" Toomer asked.

"Sure," Ben said, spinning the basketball on his finger, holding the spin for thirty seconds, showing off to the three observers who fixed their eyes on the ball and waited for it to drop or for Ben to lose control.

"You can look at Toomer's ol' nasty boots and know that boy's been way back up in the woods," Arrabelle said.

"I'll show you somethin' come Saturday n-n-night you'll never forget. Saturday the full moon time, ain't that right, Mama?"

"That better be right, son, or the world be done ending fast."

"I saw a fallin' star last night, Mama. It look like it was gonna hit right on top of my head. It scare me so bad."

"I feel so hurt up inside when I see one of those thing," Arrabelle lamented.

"Why, Arrabelle?" Lillian asked. "Falling stars are beautiful."

"That ain't no star really, chile. That's tear of Infant Jesus falling on account of a sinful, hateful world."

The black woman climbed up on the wagon and took a seat beside her son.

"You gettin' awful old, Mama," Toomer teased.

Arrabelle answered by balling up her fist and punching him in the shoulder.

"This is the hittin'est woman in this country," her son said, shaking the reins. The mule moved out slowly, the joints of the wagon whining and rattling as it moved across the Meecham lawn and went over a curb to reach the small lane that led to Eliot Street.

"You see that, son?" Lillian said, watching the slow departure of the wagon. "We've been living on bases and in cities for so long that I forgot what the South really is."

"What is it?"

"You're looking right at it," she said," but as for you, mister, these chairs better be in the house before your father gets home."

He crossed the street and began to help Toomer load the back of the wagon with the potted herbs, plants, and jars of honey he had not sold. Only two bunches of flowers were left that day. In a cardboard box, a half dozen deviled crabs shifted as Ben placed the box in the wagon. "I didn't know you sold crab, Toomer."

"I sell anything these folk want to buy, dribblin' man."

Soon the mule was pulling the wagon down River Street toward the bridge, keeping close to the parked cars on the right so the regular traffic had room to pass. At Granville Street, the mule paused, then turned to the right and started toward the bridge. A boy with bright red hair sat on a Coca-Cola box near the gas pump outside of Fogle's General Store and shouted at Toomer. "Hey, T-t-t-t-toomer. H-h-how you doing? Whwh-where you g-g-going?"

Toomer just waved, shook the reins, and urged the mule on faster. Soon they had mounted the causeway and were staring at the flowing bronze river below them.

"Who was that, Toomer?"

"That boy. He ain't nobody. He name Red Pettus and he and his family l-l-live not far from me over on the island. Pettus family like chickens. They h-h-h-hatch out all over this country. Red tease me about my s-s-stutter. That burn me up but R-r-red usually don't bother too much with me. When he was just a little boy, he used to come round and mess with me some. I taught him how to throw a cast net right. Red and his family hate a black m-m-man just for being black and just laugh when I tell 'em that J-j-jesus don't cotton much to hatin' white or black and that the world's a hatin' place and that there are t-t-too many hatin' white man and hatin' colored man runnin' around loose anyhow. B-b-but Red leave me be most of the time. He m-m-mean cause that's all he ever know. He used to come up and feed my dogs when I be up the river fishin' f-f-for a couple of days."

"He still do that sometime?"

"No, man. Y-you don't leave the chicken to watch the feed. He stole some stuff from m-m-me. A shotgun my daddy gave me. I w-w-went down to talk to his daddy but his daddy just run me off."

"Why?"

"He say a n-n-nigger ain't got nothin' his boy would want and he would 'preciate it to the highest if I would h-h-hustle my black ass down the same road I come up which I did as fast as this no-count mule would take me."

Toomer reached back and grabbed both bunches of leftover flowers. He asked Ben to hold the reins for a moment as he stood up and hollered up to the bridgetender's house. "Yooo, Mr. Harper," Toomer yelled. A thin man in khaki work clothes came out of a diminutive octagonal aerie and leaned over a steel gangplank. Before the wagon passed beneath him, Toomer tossed the flowers up to the man, who caught them in a burst of falling petals.

"How did it go today, Toomer?" Mr. Harper called down.

"Made me a million dollars today. How 'bout you?"

"I bought me the Southern Railroad. See you Monday."

The wagon crossed the bridge and took the first paved road to the right, a road that cut through a thick forest until it emerged into the clearings of vast stretches of tomato fields that appeared even in the wildest, most inaccessible reaches of the island. A mile down this road the mule veered off toward the river, shuffling down a heavily tracked dirt road that ran parallel to a large, plowed-under tomato field. Soon they entered an archway of low-hanging oaks, the bottommost branches consumed by soft stalactites of moss. Both Ben and Toomer had to duck to avoid the moss. When Ben looked up, the wagon was passing between a dozen beehives, six on either side of the road. Then the wagon was surrounded by dogs of every possible size and description. More were baying at them from the woods. Two of the more agile dogs leaped into the back of the wagon and joined Toomer and Ben on the seat, licking their faces until Toomer pushed both of them off.

"How many dogs you got, Toomer?" Ben asked. He saw collies, boxers, terriers, Labradors and combinations thereof.

"Twenty-s-s-s-six last time I checked," Toomer said.

"Where do you get them? Why do you have them?"

"Most of 'em I just pick up off the road. Marines leave 'em behind a lot when they move out from this country. Some of these dogs half dead when I find 'em."